The IT industry of Pakistan which was
showing a fantastic growth of about 50 percent annually for the last 5 years is
now finding it difficult to maintain that momentum. According to sources in the
industry the increase in federal excise on telecommunication services from 15 to
21 percent has adversely impacted the usage of mobile phone and has resulted in
a fall of about 8 percent during the first few week of the current fiscal year.

Tax levy of Rs 500 per mobile phone
would hurt low income groups that can only afford sets worth bellow Rs3,000 and
have negligible impact on higher income groups purchasing sets worth over
Rs20,000, mobile phone dealers said. The across the board tax is un-justified,
as it does not differentiate between expensive and cheap phones, they said. The
tax on mobile phones introduced in budget 2008-009 would eat away purchasing
power of persons that can only afford cheap sets. Now a person buying a cheap
mobile phone worth Rs 2,000 is paying 25 percent tax while an affluent person
purchasing a set worth Rs 20,000 is paying only 2.5 percent, it is highly
unjustified and smacks of a policy to poor.

"We have suggested the government
to reduce the tax on cheap mobile sets and keep it as low as Rs100 and on the
other side it can increase the tax on expensive mobile sets by up to Rs750 and
above according to their prices. But this was not done", they informed. The
new tax affecting sales of legally imported handsets in the organized sector
where 80 per cent sales are of cheap handsets. Mobile and telecom industry has
emerged as a great cash generator for national treasury in last few years. In
the year 2006-07 the telecom sector contributed two percent of the GDP.

Almost reaching the saturation point in
cities the mobile companies were now planning to expand their net work to
villages and suburban areas which offered a high potential for inexpensive
mobile sets. Had the government used some brain, it should not have ordered a
uniform tax of Rs 500 on all types of sets. Sliding slabs should have been
introduced starting from Rs 100 on a set costing up to Rs 3000 and Rs 3000 per
set costing Rs 50,000 and above. In this way the government would have been to
have the desired increase in its revenues without hurting the growth momentum of
the industry, a source confided to this correspondent. Increase in taxes and
duties on telecommunication services in the budget for the current fiscal year
2008-09 would have negative impact in attracting fresh foreign impact in
attracting fresh foreign direct investment in telecommunication sector and
overall economic growth of the economy, he said.

At present some 6 mobile phone
companies are providing services out of which 4 are facing losses under the head
of operations. At this point of time sudden increase in taxes and duties on this
potential sector will not be a welcome step.

Mobile phone companies have invested $6
billion during the last 4 years in their infrastructure to provide reliable
services to their consumers and crated around 1 million job opportunities across
the country. According to the mobile phone industry experts, the mobile phone
industry, which has already tapped the market in the urban areas of the country,
was planning to invest heavily in their infrastructure to expand their services
in remote and far flung areas. At present mobile phone companies have already
sold 80 million connections to the consumers but the actual numbers of live
consumers stand at 50 million. The companies were aiming at increasing their
consumer's base to at least 100 million by expanding their services in remote
and far-flung areas of the country. But the sudden shift in fiscal policy for
the telecommunication services has threatened the expansion plans of the mobile
phone companies, especially in the rural areas of the country, they lamented.

According to the telecom experts, the
result of this additional tax, contrary to the aim of government, will result in
reduced usage and expansion of the services resulting in lesser revenues. During
budget making exercise the representatives from the mobile phone industry
proposed the government to eliminate Rs 500 per connection activation charges,
which were borne by the companies and not by the consumers.

The representatives were of the view
that government should take such steps which allow the consumer base to grow as
it would result in increased investment in the infrastructure and hence more
revenues for the government as witnessed in the last four years. But the
government has not only increased the federal excise duty rate from 15 percent
to 21 percent, but also slapped Rs 500 customs duty on the import of mobile
phone sets.

Growth in mobile phone sector has also
provided good basis to the economy to grow in the last 4 to 5 years and this
sector was required to continue growth pattern to serve the rural population.
"Other options like taxing stock market or direct taxation of rich should
have been looked into as compared to burdening the existing taxpayers or
consumers," they added.

Urging the government to revise the
uniform levy on mobile sets, the industry sources has reminded the government
that Pakistan has been emerging as a location of choice for the outsourced
software development and IT enabled services such as call centers and medical
transcription. Several multinational have located development and support
centers here while others outsource work to Pakistani companies.

Pakistan has an edge over the
neighboring global giants in terms of its thriving Business Process Outsourcing
industry. The ready availability of skilled professionals, an appropriate IT
infrastructure, and affordable rates for connectivity result in considerable
time and cost savings for entrepreneurs. The costs in Pakistan are as much as 30
per cent lower than India while the infrastructure advantages of high speed
connectivity in all the major cities are available at competitive rates. There
is a rapid movement of connectivity towards broadband services which are taking
precedence in homes and business. Efforts to network the country continue, and
so far over 1,800 towns and cities have been plugged into the Internet backbone.

The Pakistani industry's major growth
area is that of telecommunication, with an increase in cellular network
operators over the last year, as well as the doubling of subscribers over the
course of a single year. One of the most progressive policy changes came with
the deregulation of fixed-line telecommunications body, PTCL, formally bringing
the incumbent operator's monopoly to an end and setting the stage for the
opening up of the sector to major investors.

THE ROLE OF A CALL CENTER

MR. AYUB BUTT

CEO - ZRG INTERNATIONAL (PVT)
LTD.

Due to a competitive
environment, progressive organizations are paying special attention to
customer services in order to gain and retain their customers. These
days, the customers prefer and even demand high quality services and
personalized attention. Therefore the service providers face a choice of
either setting up and managing physical locations to provide customer
service or creating one or more call centers to offer most of the
services by phone, email and fax.

Obviously, call center is a
much more cost effective way of delivering most of the services and
assistance required by the customer and therefore, call centers have
become a necessity of the time.

A call center provides a
platform for an organization to:

Make it easy for their
customers to access information and services

Launch and support products and
campaigns,

Fine tune products, services
and support delivery mechanism

Document all activity that
takes place during the delivery of services

Call center also helps in many
other key areas such as customer relationship building, cross-selling
and service quality assurance, etc. Most of the leading brand name
companies in the Telecom services sector and the Banking services sector
already have working call centers. Still, a large number of companies
that need a call center still do not have one and many among them are
presently planning, evaluating and implementing call center setups to
manage customer services, support, sales, recovery, marketing, etc.

HOW TO IMPROVE CALL CENTER
EFFECTIVENESS:

One thing that customer service
call centers dread is customer backlash and this is something that is
becoming all too common for call centers all over the world. Disgruntled
customers choose to do business with a rival instead of you because you
could not offer them the after-sales service that you promised. When
customers consider their trust to be breached their reactions include a
poor perception of your company, reduced likelihood of doing business
with your company, and almost no chance of recommending your company to
a friend.

Customer call centers invite
trouble when they deviate from the maxim that an existing customer who
has paid good money deserves respect; ironically most businesses are
aware that it's easier to retain a customer than go for a new one.

Poor customer perception of
business call centers is not industry-specific. Its spread across
industries covering businesses of all sizes. Too often, businesses lose
sight of customer requirements and in an effort to improve operational
efficiencies they cut corners and try to reduce costs. This affects call
center performance.

IF YOU ARE RUNNING A CALL
CENTER, YOU SHOULD KNOW WHERE THE TROUBLE LIES; HERE ARE SOME OF THE
ISSUES THAT ARE PET CUSTOMER PEEVES

Having to make more than one
call and then talking to more than one customer representative

Having to stay on hold, deal
with IVRs and a menu that is anything but easy to use.

The absence of dedicated
executives, so that each call is a new beginning where the problem has
to be explained afresh.

Poorly trained executives who
more often than not escalate the issue to their seniors while you are
put on hold.

IF YOU WISH TO IMPROVE YOUR
CUSTOMER'S EXPERIENCE WHEN INTERACTING WITH YOUR CALL CENTER, HERE ARE A
FEW THINGS THAT YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND -

Time and effort devoted to
offering customer service should not be viewed as an avoidable cost,
also your call center is not a cost center it is a profit center which
if run properly will get you a very quick ROI on what you put into it.
It also means that you have to select your call center

A successfully closed issue
helps a great deal in retaining a customer.

Only trained staff can deliver
consistent results so focus on training the staff, quality control.
Attrition can prove to be a drain on your resources so work on retaining
the experienced and talented staff.

Remember there are a lot of
intangibles and trifles that lead to improved customer call center
performance which in turn enables you to achieve sales conversions.
Empathize with your customer and you will be handsomely rewarded for it.
Do not forget that it also means that you have to carefully select your
call center CRM application.